BLOOMBERG LAW — What goes up must come down. It’s a lesson seemingly every financial asset is reminding us lately. So many early “pandemic darlings”—Netflix, Peloton, Zoom—that surged as Covid-19 took hold and people stayed home aren’t looking like they’ve won much of anything, two years later. Big Law profits are next at risk of faltering from record highs. Large firms were always bound to be victims of their own success—and overwork. Now they are facing rising costs and growing economic uncertainty, too. Big Law firms aren’t publicly traded. The closest equivalent the industry has is the annual release of AmLaw’s profits per equity partner. That figure, set to be reported next month, will no doubt show the booming value of holding equity in the world’s most prestigious law firms. Many of the numbers reported by AmLaw so far have been staggering. Cooley, for instance, told AmLaw the firm’s profits per partner rose nearly $900,000 from last year—a 28% increase—to $4 million. It’s possible that average profits per partner across the AmLaw 100 could have grown as much as 20% last year. That’s on top of 13% growth in 2020. It’s a huge jump from the more recent trend of 6% profit growth in the previous three years.